


Dare you to move

by smkkbert



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Evil!Felicity, F/M, brainwashed!Felicity, non speculation fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 06:38:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5817970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smkkbert/pseuds/smkkbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night of their break-up Felicity disappears. For three weeks nobody hears of her. Nobody sees her. Nobody knows where she is. Until Felicity comes back to Star City, only she isn't really herself.</p><p>This idea was created while I was watching scenes of Reign on youtube and fell in love with the line, "Remember your son. Do not test my power and do not tempt my fury."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dare you to move

_Welcome to the fallout._  
_Welcome to resistance._  
_The tension is here_  
_Tension is here_  
_Between who you are and who you could be_  
_Between how it is and how it should be_

 

“You will leave the life you had until now and settle here. You will take off your clothes and dress into what will be given to you instead. You will shed your language and learn that one that you will be taught to you instead. You will give up on what you have been doing before and do what you will be told instead. And you will let go of who you have been to become who I want you to be.”

“You must be insane to think that I am going to do any of this. Well, scratch that. I knew you are insane before you dragged me here and confronted me with your sick ideas. What makes you even think that I will just go with it?”

“You will do so because you will be given no choice.”

“Why would you do all of that? What evil plan is behind all of this?”

“I wouldn’t call it evil. It’s a necessity. You will become my wife.”

 

 

The first thing Oliver noticed, when he entered the lair, was that Felicity wasn’t there.

Of course she wasn’t there, he thought bitterly. When she had left the penthouse the night before, she had made very clear that she didn’t want to be anywhere near him right now or anytime soon and that his hundred calls all had immediately gone to voicemail had only proved how serious she was about it. She hadn’t said it to hurt him like he had hurt her. It hadn’t been a punishment. It had been her need. She had said it because he had kept a secret from her and because he had lied to her and because he had betrayed the foundation of their relationship – trust and communication – by that.

She didn’t want to talk to him or see him or even be anywhere near him.  
Because she was hurt and felt betrayed and needed time to think about whether or not she could still be with him.

With his shoulders slumped and his head lowered, Oliver slowly walked over to her chair in front of the computers and sat down there. Putting his forearms on his knees and letting his head hang down between his shoulders, he closed his eyes and tried not think about the heartbroken expression on her face.

He had thought about it all night long. It had kept him from sleeping or even lying down. Instead he had paced up and down the penthouse, thinking about what he had done as well as her reaction to it. It had increased his guilt, making him call her every few minutes even though he had known that she wasn’t going to pick up.

He had screwed up. Again.

When he heard the elevator arrive at the level of the basement, he hopefully lifted his head and turned his gaze to the doors, hoping for them to open and Felicity to step out and tell him that of course she was angry and hurt about what he had done and that she needed time, but they would at least try to work through this. If it didn’t work, it wouldn’t work and they would have to surrender to it, but they needed to at least try.

He hoped so against all odds.

And of course when the door opened and John stepped into their hideout, he released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, and revealed his disappointment.

“I guess you were hoping for someone else,” John said empathically, cocking his head at him. “So Felicity didn’t pick up, call you back or text you or anything since she left?”

Oliver shook his head.

He had gone nuts. He had called and texted everyone, telling them to call him or text him back if Felicity was going to show up. He had just needed to know where she was and that she was safe. But he had only gotten messages that Felicity had not been seen since the debate.

The debate. The horrible debate where his secret son had been revealed live on TV for everyone to see. But that everyone in the city had learned about William and that that reveal had threatened his political career as Alex had told him, hadn’t bothered him at all because all Oliver had been thinking about had been Felicity. The way she had looked at him when she had heard – unbelieving and hurt.

They had gone home together and he had told her everything and she had left, stating that she couldn’t be near him right now.

Since then nobody had seen her or talked to her. She hadn’t gone to anyone, so Oliver suggested that she had gone to the penthouse in Palmer Technologies. Since it wasn’t used and there was a completely furnished apartment, it seemed logical for her to go there. But still Oliver was worried that she hadn’t called anyone. Not even her mom. Because as terrified as he had been about calling Donna, who he knew had known about his secret being revealed and who he had assumed was mad as hell at him for lying to her daughter, his worries about Felicity had been worse, so he had called her, but just like Laurel, Thea, Dig, Curtis, Barry and everyone else he had called, she hadn’t heard anything of her daughter.

“Can you try and call her?” Oliver almost asked in a whisper. “I know you probably think I should have talked to her immediately and that she is right to take her time off and I don’t even want to fight you on that. I just need to know that she’s okay.”

“Look, man, I don’t know enough to judge you for what you’ve done. I just know that you really hurt her with keeping such a thing from her,” John replied calmly. “I thought the three of us were done with keeping secrets from one another.”

Oliver nodded, lowering his head guiltily. He had fucked up. Big time. Again.

Still, John pulled his phone from the inside pocket of his leather jacket and made the phone call his friend has asked him to do. Oliver looked up at him hopefully. He knew Felicity wouldn’t talk to him, but if she talked to John, at least he would know that she was… maybe not okay, but at least safe. He didn’t like the thought of not knowing whether or not she was safe.

But when after a few seconds, John shook his head and put his phone back into the pocket of his jacket, Oliver’s heart sank and the worry that had been there before took hold of all of his thoughts and feelings. This wasn’t like Felicity. Even if she was mad at him and hurt and felt lost after what he had done, she wouldn’t let them or at least not the others worry about whether or not she was okay. She knew that with the craziness of their lives, they worried about each other.

Again the doors of the elevators opened and Oliver’s gaze snapped into the direction of them, but again he was disappointed. Of course it wasn’t her.

“Has one of you heard anything of Felicity?” he asked immediately.

“No,” Thea answered. “We stayed up all night and waited for her to show up at our doorsteps to pour her heart out, but she didn’t come.”

“We tried to call her and tell her to come see us, but she didn’t pick up,” Laurel added, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Is it just me thinking that or is it really unlikely for her to not even send a message and let us know she is… okay?”

“We have to find her,” Oliver stated firmly, straightening up on her chair and looking at the others determinedly. “I know I owe all of you explanations at least. Probably an apology, too.”

His gaze was focused on Laurel when he said those last words because although all he worried about was Felicity and whether or not she was okay, he knew that he had to apologize to Laurel at one point in the future. He was very well aware that William had been a result of him cheating on her and although they weren’t together anymore and she already knew that he hadn’t been faithful while being with her, he knew that he still had to say out loud how truly sorry he was.

“But right now,” he continued, now looking at all of them again, “we need to find Felicity. After hundreds of missed calls and text messages she would call back or text back if she was alright. She is not alright.”

Everyone nodded in agreement before they joined him on the platform.

“So you haven’t heard of her since she left last night?” Thea asked and Oliver shook his head.

“Did you try calling her mom?” Laurel asked and Oliver nodded.

“Did you check the penthouse in Palmer Technologies?” John asked and Oliver shook his head. “Okay. So I’ll go check that place and if she isn’t there, I’ll go to that Curtis guy and tell him to hack every hotel computer server and every camera in the city to find her.”

“I’ll go see my dad and ask him if he knows anything,” Laurel suggested, knowing that since her father had started dating Felicity’s mother, the IT-girl and the Captain had grown even closer to one another. “Maybe he can call Donna again and make sure she didn’t just kept Felicity’s location a secret because you have been the one asking.”

While the two of them headed out, Thea stepped closer to her brother.

“Did she say it’s over?” she asked quietly.

Oliver didn’t look at her for a long time. His head was still lowered and his gaze focused on the floor as if it held the answers to all his questions. When his hands moved into the pocket of his jeans, they were shaking so much that it took him a while before they could get hold of the little item in it and they still shook when he held his open palm out to Thea, showing her the piece of jewelry she had always admired at her mother’s hand when she had been younger.

“She gave me this back, so I guess she did.”

 

 

Dark eyes focused on her body that lay on the cold ground of the dark cell. She was on the edge of unconsciousness, her body weirdly writhed. Pain had knocked her out after she had spent hours screaming her head off. The angry red marks she knew were on her back proved how much she had been able to take before her body had given up. Some of them were bleeding. She could feel where single drops of blood crawled over her skin.

“So her willpower starts to crumble?” she heard him ask and although her mind was drifting further and further away, she could still picture him standing in the door to her cell with his hands put behind his back, holding onto the wrist of his right hand with his left hand.

She didn’t hear the answer. She didn’t even need to. Because she knew that they were talking about her willpower to refuse giving up on her identity. She refused to give up who she was to become who they wanted her to be. Who _he_ wanted her to be.

She knew she had to hold on. She knew she had to hold on to who she was to not become who they tried to make her be. She couldn’t be who they wanted her to be. She just couldn’t. She had to be who she was and who she had made herself be.

But for the first time since she had come here, she couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember who she was and who she had made herself be.

Desperately trying to find the missing piece of information in the depth of her thoughts and memories, she used up the last strength that had kept her from losing consciousness. Slowly everything around her became black. Her body felt like it was no longer connected to her, like it was an unyielding cage her mind was locked up in instead of a part of herself.

She heard a voice she knew wasn’t really there and she knew she had heard before but couldn’t remember when and where whisper to her, “You were the first person I could see as a… person. There was just something about you.”

 _Something about you_ , she thought and tried to force herself to remember what it was. What something had made her so special to the voice in her head? But while everything was finally fading away and turning back, she had to admit that she just couldn’t remember.

 

“Oliver, you have to-“

“Find her?!” Oliver interrupted his friend harshly, his breaths coming short as the adrenaline was still rushing through his veins. “Yes! That is what I have to do! It’s actually what I should have done already!”

“Ollie-“ Thea said calmly, trying to take some of the tension from the situation.

“It’s been almost three weeks!” Oliver shouted angrily, slamming his fists on the surface of the desk Felicity usually worked on before he grabbed the edge of the furniture and overturned it. The computer screens flew around before they slammed to the floor loudly, falling into several pieces. “Three weeks! Nobody has seen her! Nobody has heard of her! And that means that somebody _has_ her! Somebody has her and who knows what they are doing to her?! Three weeks! She could already be-“

His voice broke, his knees giving out. Like he was being beaten he sank to the floor with his face screwed up in unbearable pain.

Three weeks. Three weeks of not seeing her, of not hearing her voice. Three weeks of not knowing if she was okay and more importantly if she was still alive. With every passing day his hope that she was alive and only taking some time of her own had been fading. By now he knew with great certainty that she was held captive somewhere against her will. The reason she wasn’t here and didn’t let them know that she was okay wasn’t because she wanted her time away and wanted them to worry. It was because she wasn’t given a choice.

But who had her? Who?

His first thought had been that it had to be Darhk. He hated them. He wanted to destroy them. He wanted to destroy Oliver by taking his loved ones from him. He had shot at them right after their engagement, almost killing Felicity. She had only survived due to some miracle Oliver still couldn’t believe had happened to them.

But according to Lance, Darhk had only been pleasantly surprised when he had heard of Felicity’s disappearing. He wasn’t the one who had her. And although Oliver had doubted the honesty of Darhk’s reaction for quite some time, he knew that if Darhk really had her, he had already used her to pressurize him with her life. That hadn’t happened. Darhk didn’t have her.

So who else did?

Oliver’s first suggestion after Darhk had been her father. Only few weeks before Felicity had disappeared, her father had been here in Star City and he had said things about Felicity being special and being destined for a greater life than one in Star City that had made his hair stand end hackles and warning bells ring.

But Curtis and Cisco together had found that son of a bitch who had left her life to embrace his criminal life. Oliver and the rest of the team had sought him out and interrogated him, not without Oliver torturing the guy for what he had done to Felicity in the past and what he had believed he had been doing to her currently. And again Oliver had been forced to accept that he was questioning the wrong guy. Her father hadn’t known where she was.

Next suggestion had led him to Slade. His friend-turned-enemy was always in the back of his mind. Since Felicity had become a real part of his life, Oliver thought about Slade’s word of when they had last seen each other on Lian Yu even more often than before. _How’s the girl with the glasses? What’s her name? ... Felicity._ One day Slade might escape Lian Yu and if he did, Oliver knew exactly what he was going to do.

But Slade was still on Lian Yu. Lyla had used her contacts to A.R.G.U.S. to make sure of that. Oliver would have personally traveled there if it hadn’t cost him too much time. Time he had needed to explore other possibilities.

Just that there weren’t any other specific ideas on who could have her.

Three weeks ago Felicity had left the penthouse after a fight. She had stepped onto the sidewalk and started walking in southern direction. And only half a block away from their home, she had disappeared. The camera next to the coffee shop Curtis had hacked, had showed her that night. The camera next to the jewelry store three buildings further hadn’t. She had disappeared without any hint of who had taken her and where they had taken her.

“What if she’s already-?”

“You cannot think like that, man,” John said, his voice not hiding how worried he was, too. “Of course we need to find her, but it’s like she said to you after Darhk shot her, you cannot lose yourself in the process. As long as we have no clue about where she is, going off the rails will only cost us time that we could use to find her. We need to think about the possibilities again and-“

“What possibilities?”

It had been meant as an angry shout because Oliver was so mad everyone was telling him that they needed to keep it together and he couldn’t go off the rails. John had gone off the rails for a short time two weeks back, but Lyla had pulled him back from it and back to himself. Oliver couldn’t be pulled back because the person that usually did this for him wasn’t there anymore.

“We have no idea where she is. She is not in the penthouse. She is not with her mom. She is not in Bali-“

“I would really like to know what has happened in Bali once Felicity is back,” Thea murmured quietly, but Oliver ignored it.

“We all agree that she is not somewhere where she wants to be. So that raises the question of who has her, but neither Darhk, nor her father or Slade or any of the other criminals we questioned in the last three weeks has any idea! So don’t you dare tell me we have to think about the possibilities! We have thought about the possibilities. There is none left. We have to-”

When the back-up computers at the other end of the platform gave alarm, Oliver fell silent. Thea walked over to the small screens, pushing a few buttons on the keyboard before she stated, “Criminal activity in one of the abandoned warehouses in the Docks.”

Oliver nodded, getting up from the floor and grabbing his bow that he had dropped to the floor when they had come back from the last mission where he had tortured a weapons trader until he had been sure that that guy had had no idea of where Felicity was. Maybe if they went back out there again Oliver could get rid of some of the rage inside of him and then they could do like John had suggested and think about what other possibilities there were.

“We’re heading out,” Oliver decided.

“Shall I call Laurel and see if she’s got time now?” Thea asked.

“I don’t care,” Oliver answered, already on the way to the back entrance of the liar. “But I am not going to wait.”

Oliver didn’t miss the gaze his friend and his sister shared behind his back. He knew they were worried about his behavior and he knew that blaming them of not caring enough for Felicity to go far enough to find her wasn’t exactly fair. He couldn’t expect them to go off the rails like he did to find her. But it felt like he was the only one willing to risk something to find her. Sometimes he felt like they still believed she was just taking her time out, hiding from him to punish him for his lie.

But Oliver knew better than that. His Felicity was held captive somewhere. She was threatened and tortured. She was scared. He could feel it in his bones. Felicity was not alright. And he desperately needed her to be alright. She needed to be alright and she needed to be back here where he could see that she was safe. He felt like he was going more insane with every passing day.

He got on his motorcycle and started heading out, seeing John and Thea following him in the driving mirror.

Heading out in his Arrow suit was the only time he felt like he was really doing anything. It was the only time he felt like he wasn’t failing her completely. He needed to find her and he could only find her when he was out there, finding criminals who could know where she was. He had exhausted his ideas of who had her. Now he needed to act. Anyone telling him he needed to keep himself together be damned!

Oliver felt just as maddened as he had been when Felicity had been shot in the hospital right after their engagement. Only now he felt so much more lost because while back after their engagement, he had known where she was and that she was alive, in his darkest moments now he couldn’t help picturing her dead body lying in a dark alleyway.

And it only increased his rage. What Oliver needed was to get it out of his body. And the best way to do so was by beating up some criminals.

When they arrived near the warehouse, they put their motorcycles away and took a quick look around. Everything was dark.

“Spartan, you take the back entrance,” Oliver said, remembering the building since he had been there before when Nyssa had used it as her hideout. “Speedy and I get in there over the roof.”

He didn’t wait for their reaction. He knew that since he was sure that Felicity hadn’t run away but had been taken, he had fallen back into old habits, not only the ones of torturing and killing but also the one of taking over command in the team. They all hated it, but Oliver couldn’t care less. He could start caring again once Felicity was back.

“I’m at the back entrance. Everything is quiet. No light,” John told them over the comms.

“Same here,” Thea replied. “Maybe whatever it was is already done?”

“We came here so quickly, they cannot be gone already,” Oliver almost growled, got up from his crouched position and jumped down into the empty space of the warehouse, looking around. “Somebody has to be here.”

Somebody he could break a few ribs of and put a few arrows into. Someone he could ask if he knew where Felicity was.

When he sensed a movement to his right, Oliver turned around to find three assassins approaching him with their weapons at hand to fight him, but Oliver was the first to make a move, so he met them half way and started fighting them. He barely noticed that more and more assassins appeared, starting fights with Thea and John, too.

The last meeting with the League or rather their leader had not ended too well. After the team had helped Nyssa to escape the League and the punishment she had been supposed to suffer for trying to kill Merlyn, the new Demon’s head told him that from now on his support shouldn’t be counted on. But Oliver would have never assumed that he would set the League against them. Thea was still his daughter after all.

John, Thea and he himself all fought back as well as they could, but there were just too many assassins. Whenever they had taken one out, two new ones appeared. Within minutes Thea ended up on the floor, John was not only unarmed but also taken off his helmet and punched in the face brutally over and over again until he was barely conscious anymore. And although Oliver had been part of the League – even if only shortly – he had no chance against the mass of assassins, either. Arrows were shot in his direction and while one ended up in his thigh and made him fall down onto his knees, two others released ropes around his wrists. Two assassins hastily grabbed the other ends of the robes and a third one put his hand to Oliver’s neck and pressed the blade of his sword against the side of Oliver’s neck. Thea and John were both pulled upright, held in tight grips they couldn’t get out of even when they tried fighting them.

“My father-!” Thea started, but was stopped when an assassin held a sword to her neck from behind her. She gulped, lowering her gaze to where she could see the blade pressed against her skin.

Oliver tried to free himself from his cords, but it only made the ropes cut into his skin harshly. Gritting his teeth, he tried to move against the pain and against the ropes and hands that were keeping him in this position, but immediately an assassin stepped forward and while the one holding him down with his hand in his neck now gripped a fistful of Oliver’s hair to pull his head back violently, the assassin in front of him started punching him over and over and over again.

In the back of his mind Oliver knew that this wasn’t the right moment to give up. He knew that he couldn’t give up now with John and Thea being held by the League and nobody having a clue where Felicity was, but those punches right into his face felt so deserved that he didn’t even try to fight them. He just let himself be hit.

One punch for keeping William a secret from Felicity.  
One punch for letting Felicity walk out in her angry state instead of holding her back and leaving the penthouse himself instead.  
One punch for letting Felicity get hurt in the limousine after their engagement.  
One punch for letting her be taken after their fight.  
One punch for still not finding her.  
One punch for-

“Hold!”

Immediately Oliver’s gaze snapped into the direction the voice had come from. Although he couldn’t see much of the person that was slowly approaching him, Oliver knew already who it was. He had longed for this voice although he had never heard it speak in this tone. He had heard it in the little time he had slept since he had heard it the last time.

“Felicity,” he choked out, tasting blood on his tongue.

She stepped out of the shadows. Her small figure was dressed into clothes he had never seen on her. It wasn’t the typical outfit of the League either and still nobody would deny that it was a League’s garment. Her blonde hair fell onto her shoulders in messy waves that framed her face instead of being wrapped up into her usual high ponytail. She didn’t wear glasses like usually and the hard look on her face was something he had never seen on her before.

It was her and yet it seemed like it wasn’t.

She stopped a few feet away from them, looking from Thea to Oliver and then to John. Only then did her gaze focus back on Oliver between the other two teammates.

“Where is Laurel?” she asked. The tone of her voice was so cold, her voice was barely recognizable. “I was expecting all four of you to show up here.”

“Felicity…” Oliver whispered, but didn’t get any further since Felicity nodded her head in his direction and the assassin that had punched him before did it again now, making Oliver’s vision fade for a short moment and his head tip forward until the assassin behind him grabbed the hair at the back of his head again and ripped his head back, making him look at her again.

“Felicity is not anymore,” she responded. “She is gone. What is left is Al Aroosa.”

No, Oliver thought without taking her gaze off of her. No, no, no, no, no.  
This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t possible.

“Where is Nyssa al Ghul?” she asked, looking from Oliver to Thea, back to Oliver and then to John before her gaze again focused on Oliver.

Nobody answered. After they had helped her escape from the League and protected her from Malcolm’s punishment, she had disappeared. Laurel had told them that maybe she was looking for Sara, but she hadn’t known for sure, especially since she had asked her not to look for her. They hadn’t heard of her since. They didn’t know where she was.

“Answer!” she demanded and again nodded to the assassin in front of him who immediately punched Oliver again.

“We don’t know,” Oliver answered, not looking away from Felicity.

“Then find her,” she demanded. “Ra’s al Ghul wants her back since she hasn’t undergone the full punishment she deserves for betraying him.”

“Felicity…” Oliver tried to get through to her once again, but one nod of her head and his head slammed back due to the force of a fist crushing into his face.

“You will deliver Nyssa al Ghul to me by dawn. You will tell her that she will go back to face her punishment for betraying the demon’s head. I have command over the assassins in town and I will make sure that they will punish those who defy him like she did.”

She was already turning around and walking away, but Oliver couldn’t let it happen. He finally had her back. He knew she was alive. He knew she was in Star City. Now he just needed to really get her back. He needed to get her back to being herself. He knew the League. He knew how they worked. He knew what she had probably been put through. So he needed to get through to her to help her remember who she really was and help her getting over what had been done to her.

“Felicity…” he whispered again.

But she didn’t react. She didn’t stop. She didn’t look back.

“What if we cannot find Nyssa that soon?” Oliver asked, hoping that would at least make her say something more.

There were only few hours left before the sun would rise. How would they find Nyssa that soon? And if they found her, how would they get her to come here? And how would they find a way to not hand Nyssa over to the League and at the same time not getting killed? And most importantly, how would they get Felicity out of the League?

At his question Felicity stood still. Her back was still turned towards him as she seemed to consider her answer. It took three long heartbeats before she turned around, her eyes still cold and hateful. Slowly she walked back to them and with a nod of her head she told the assassin who was still standing in front of Oliver like he had only been waiting to punch him once more to make room for her. Immediately he stepped aside.

Please remember who you really are, Oliver prayed silently. He knew that she knew in the back of her mind who she had been, but she had been made believe that Felicity was not who she should be and she was now Al Aroosa whoever they told her that was. They had told her that the life in the League was the best way for her life to take. But that was a lie. The best for her was Felicity Smoak. She needed to be herself again. She needed to remember who she really was.

The expression in her eyes changed from the hard and cold expression to something else Oliver couldn’t really describe. Although the corners of her lips were twitching slightly like she was trying to keep herself from smiling, it didn’t reach her eyes. They were sparkling with something he had never seen on her.

Felicity leaned close to him, so the tip of her nose was almost brushing against his. He could feel her breath ghosting over his skin. He could smell the scent of her skin. And all he would have to do to kiss her was leaning forward and brushing his lips against hers. But as much as he wanted to do so, he didn’t. Because she was not herself right now and she wouldn’t want to be kissed. He doubted that even if she were herself, she wanted to be kissed by him right now.

When she spoke, he voice was only a whisper, a cold, barely audible whisper.

“Remember your son. Do not test my power and do not tempt my fury.”

When she turned around, she nodded to the assassin who had stood in front of him and stepped aside when she had approached. While she was starting to walk away, the assassin stepped back in front of him and thrust a syringe in the side of Oliver’s neck.

He felt his vision fading and his muscles going limp.

Right before everything went black, he figured out what word to describe the expression in Felicity’s eyes with, not matter how much he wanted to push the though away.

Evil. In Felicity’s eyes was pure evilness.

 

 

They woke shortly after on the floor of their lair, all gasping for breath.

“What the-“ Thea started, but it ended in a groan as her view seemed to blur in front of her eyes and she had to put her hands onto her head, trying to keep the world from spinning.

“Whatever that drug was, I don’t want to put under its influence again,” John said, breathing out slowly, before he looked over to Oliver. “So Merlyn had her.”

“He had her the entire time,” Oliver said, shaking his head and getting up from the floor. He ignored the feeling of dizziness that tried to make him sink back down onto the floor.”And now he turned her against us. They brainwashed her. We need to get her out of there.”

“But how?” Thea asked and when John and Oliver both looked at her, she hastily lifted her hands. “Don’t get me wrong. I agree. Of course we need to get her out of there. But how? Malcolm has resources with the League we can’t even imagine in our worst nightmares. And since I stood on your side during the whole problem with Nyssa, I don’t think Malcolm will let Felicity go even if I ask him to.”

“We need a plan,” John said, shortly trying to wipe some of the blood from his face, but it was mostly dried. “We need a really great plan to get Felicity back. After that we can figure out how to get her really back. Back to herself. But first we need to get rid of the League.”

“Well, maybe I can help with that.”

At the sound of the woman’s voice John’s, Thea’s and Oliver’s head snapped into the direction of the elevators where Laurel and Nyssa stepped out at each other’s side.

“How did you-?” Oliver asked Nyssa, glancing at Laurel in question, but she raised her hands and shook her head.

“Nyssa was the one calling me and asking me to see her,” she explained.

“I still have my sources in the League,” the assassin explained. “And they told me that Merlyn is out for revenge on you for standing up against him about me. And since with Thea taking your side, he needs a new heir, he seems to have combined his desire for revenge and his need for an heir.”

Oliver frowned. He refused to believe what his mind tried telling him about what Nyssa’s words meant. He knew that it was actually obvious, especially with the name that had been given to her, but his Felicity being forced into…  
No, he refused to believe that anyone would be able to do something like that to her.

“Al Aroosa is not a name,” Nyssa stated. “Just like Ra’s al Ghul, it’s a title. She is his bride.”

Oliver felt his stomach twist and turn at the sound of that. Not only was Felicity forced into marriage, she was also forced into marriage with someone she hated from the depth of her heart. Oliver knew she hated Malcolm and now he had brainwashed her and was forcing her into marriage because of him.

“What is your plan?”

“It was never my attention to leave the League and leave the field to Merlyn. I want to get rid of him,” Nyssa stated. “Once he’s dead, I will take over the League.”

“And Felicity?” John asked.

“I have no interest in forcing her to be part of the League.”

“We all get rid of Malcolm together, she’ll be the next Ra’s al Ghul, we’ll get Felicity back,” Laurel summed the deal up.

Oliver frowned at her. “You are in for killing him?”

“He killed Tommy and a lot of other people. He made Thea kill my sister. He locked Nyssa in a cell for months. He brainwashed Felicity and tries to force her into marriage,” Laurel stated, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “If there is someone deserving death, it’s him.”

Oliver looked back at John, who shrugged his right shoulder and nodded in agreement.

“Thea?” he then asked calmly, watching his sister closely as her gaze was lowered to the floor and her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Are you okay with that?”

“I was okay with killing him a year ago when I found out what he made me do to Sara,” Thea said quietly, not lifting her gaze to her brother.

He couldn’t do it without her consent. After everything Malcolm had done, he was still her father. He couldn’t rob his sister half the family she had left, no matter how crappy that family was.

“And now?” he asked in a whisper when Thea didn’t continue.

“I still think so,” Thea replied, looking at her brother with determination in her eyes. “He hasn’t changed. He never will. We have to kill him.”

Oliver sighed barely audible for anyone. Everyone agreed. Malcolm Merlyn had to be killed. By the end of the night Felicity was hopefully back with them. Once the League had left Star City, it would get easier. Hopefully.

Oliver formed his hands to fists and opened them again some times to calm the growing impatience inside of him. He wanted to go to Nanda Parbat and get that son of a bitch killed immediately. But he knew it would be stupid. Nanda Parbat was a dangerous place and even if you got in, you didn’t necessarily get out again alive.

“When are we heading to Nanda Parbat?” Oliver asked Nyssa.

“Not at all,” Nyssa answered, “because Malcolm Merlyn is here in Star City.”

Of course he was, Oliver thought bitterly. Malcolm Merlyn didn’t want to wait in Nanda Parbat. He wanted to watch his revenge being done. He had wanted to see Oliver’s reaction to Felicity’s brainwashed self after he had helped Nyssa escape the punishment of the League and with that he had played part in contributing to turning Thea, his only child left, against him even more than she had been against him before.

 “So what’s the plan?” Oliver asked.

 

 

Everyone knew that plan. It was risky and nobody was sure they were going to survive because after all it was still the League they were going to fight against, even if it was only a small part of it. It was still the League. The League of assassins. Fifteen assassins and their leader. And a brainwashed blonde that held Oliver’s heart.

It just needed to work, Oliver thought, going through the plan once again.

Laurel, John and he himself were going to take Nyssa in to deliver her to the League like Felicity had demanded from them. They would check the location, making sure all fifteen assassins as well as Malcolm Merlyn and Felicity were really there. Oliver was sure that the son of a bitch was there and this time he would pay. He had killed Tommy, had made Thea kill Sara and now he had brainwashed Felicity. He should have stopped him already. This time he wouldn’t get away with it. Enough was enough.

When the right time had come, Laurel would use her Canary Cry to distract the assassins. Meanwhile Thea and Roy, who had surprisingly joined them tonight since he had heard from the news that Felicity seemed to be missing and had been on his way to offer his help in searching for her, would come in from the roof. The two archers as well as John would use their weapons to drug the assassins and take them out for like the next hour. Nyssa had brought some poison with her that Thea and Roy had dipped the head of their arrows in and that John had dipped the bullets of his guns in. The poison was supposed to operate quickly, so it shouldn’t take too long until Malcolm Merlyn’s little minions were taken out.

John and Thea, who didn’t want to take active part in killing her father although she felt he deserved death, would get Felicity and bring her to the van and then take her to the lair where they would wait for the others to come back.

During all of this Nyssa and Oliver would take care of Malcolm Merlyn. They had both been trained in the League, even if it had only been shortly for Oliver. Together they would be able to take him down. And once that was done, Nyssa would take the ring her father had given to Oliver right before he had died not even a year ago and hence she was going to take over the League.

Once they would have taken care of Merlyn’s body, Oliver and the others would follow John, Thea and Felicity to the lair and figure out what to do with Felicity.

“Are we getting started?” Roy asked over the comms since he and Thea were getting there from the other side of the warehouse.

Oliver nodded although he knew his friend couldn’t see him. His fingers were itching with the need to get through with this plan. The sooner they started, the sooner it would end. And the sooner Felicity could get back to herself and back to them.

He knew that they still had a lot to talk about because the secret he had kept from her and the mistrust she had in him because of that was still between them. So they would have to have a serious talk about all of that once Felicity was ready to. But to do so she first needed to be taken from Merlyn’s influence.

They started approaching the warehouse. John walked to Oliver’s left, two guns directed in front of him in case there were any threats that needed to be taken out, but of course the League and Merlyn as their leader were too arrogant to think anyone would screw them over or be able to take them if they dared to. On Oliver’s other side Nyssa was walking with her weapons well hidden under her garment. Laurel was walking next to her, her gaze moving through the dark in hope to find Thea and Roy.

When they entered the warehouse, Oliver felt himself being pulled back to a moment more than a year ago when he had challenged Ra’s al Ghul to a duel. The fifteen assassins of the League were standing in the empty space in a semicircle. Malcolm Merlyn wore the mantle the former Ra’s al Ghul had worn, too. He stood in the same position with his hands behind his back. Oliver himself dad adapted that position when he had been in the League, trained to become the next Ra’s al Ghul.

But all of that Oliver only noticed shortly as he was taking in the room. Instead his eyes focused on the woman at Merlyn’s side. The expression in her eyes made his stomach flip.

Don’t be scared, he told her in his mind although she looked everything but scared. Everything is going to be fine. You’ll soon be home again.

“Oliver,” Merlyn’s voice ripped through the silence. “I see you followed Al Aroosa’s command. I was thinking you would do it when she was the one asking.”

Oliver’s hand tightened around his bow in rage. How did Merlyn even dare to talk to him after what he had done to Felicity? How did he dare to talk to him about her?

“I told you it was the wrong decision to stand up against me,” the head of the assassins explained. “I’ve seen you as my son. But you-“

“Let’s just get this over with,” Oliver growled, fearing if Merlyn spoke any other word, he was just going to attack him, the plan be damned.

His gaze focused on Felicity again. She stood next to Merlyn without moving. Her gaze was directed into the empty space, her lips a harsh line. He had promised himself never to kill again after Tommy had died, but for her he’d break that promise any time.

Oliver watched Merlyn closely, wondering whether he would sense anything about the trap, but since Oliver was sure that Merlyn would never anticipate that the team was going to start a fight as long as Felicity was in his hands, Oliver hoped their plan would work enough to surprise him.

“Nyssa,” Merlyn said, his eyes focusing on his enemy. “Come here.”

Nyssa had barely taken two steps into Merlyn’s direction before the terrible pain in his ear told Oliver that they had gotten started. He drew the sword Nyssa had given to him, insisting on fighting with swords only against Merlyn, and just like Nyssa he attacked Merlyn. It was a fast-paced fight, one that didn’t leave much time to think about what he was doing. He just did it.

From the corner of his eyes he could see that the others had been forced to deviate from their part of the plan. Thea and Roy were still shooting arrows, John still shooting bullets at the assassins, but all three of them and Laurel were fighting in hand-combat against the assassins that weren’t drugged on the floor already. The team had gotten used to the Canary Cry some time ago and although it still hurt in their ears and their heads, it didn’t paralyze them anymore. Surely the League of Assassins had been put through worse pain than that, too, which was why the device hadn’t had the hoped impact on them.

When Oliver saw a movement from his right, he hastily ducked away from under Merlyn’s sword and turned around to what he had supposed would be an assassin trying to help his leader to find Felicity not far in front of him instead, holding a sword in both of her hands and looking at him determinedly. He glanced shortly back at Nyssa who was continuing fighting Merlyn and urging him away with her blade like she was trying to make room for Oliver and Felicity.

A slight pain in his right thigh made him look back at the woman he had asked to marry him not that long ago. She was still holding the sword, blood now dropping from the blade. Oliver looked down at his thigh to find a short, not really deep cut there. Blood was running down his thigh, Oliver realized with a frown.

She could have done worse. She could have easily hurt him much more, making it hard for him to fight. He had been so incautious, turning his back towards her, because she had never hurt him. Not like that. But she had only cut him slightly. She surely couldn’t have gone through any kind of training because breaking her like she was broken right now must have cost a lot of time already and three weeks was not enough to turn her into a well-trained assassin. Still, she could have done worse. Even without any training.

Oliver looked up at her, finding the same unchanged determination and cold in her eyes. No insecurity about what she was doing.

“Felicity…” he said calmly, taking a tiny step towards her and reaching out the hand that didn’t hold the sword.

“It’s Al Aroosa,” Felicity snapped at him, trying to hit hand with the sword, but he hastily pulled it away.

“You are Felicity,” Oliver explained calmly, glancing at where Nyssa and Merlyn were still fighting. They seemed to be about level in ability with their weapons. Still, Oliver knew that he eventually needed to step in, not because he was better than Nyssa, as she had accentuated over and over again while she had been telling them about the plan, but because their joined forces would help taking down Merlyn because what he could contribute to the fight would hopefully be enough to give Nyssa the upper hand. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know I don’t have to,” Felicity replied with the cold voice her barely recognized as hers. “But I want to.”

She moved, trying to attack him, but her movements weren’t nearly enough to get Oliver to so much as struggling. She had no idea what she was doing and it wasn’t like Felicity to jump head first into disaster. Whatever cruel brainwashing methods Merlyn had used on her he seemed to have also used them to make her believe she needed to fight. Maybe even that she could fight. Merlyn wanted to make sure that Felicity was never coming back. She was going to live with the League or die for them.

Oliver wouldn’t let that happen. With two easy movements he raised his sword and hit the blade of his against hers so hard, it fell from her hands. Felicity didn’t even look down at the sword. She just kept looking at Oliver.

“Kill me,” she said then. “Kill me because I swear to God if you don’t do it, I will find your kid and I will kill him.”

“No, you won’t,” Oliver said firmly. “You’re coming home with me.”

“Nanda Parbat is my home now.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Of course it is. Felicity Smoak is dead. All that left is-“

He couldn’t take it any more second. Always the same words. Felicity was dead. All that was left was Al Aroosa. He had heard Maseo say the same things about himself and Al Sarab. He himself had stated those words when he had become Al Sah-him. The League broke people and tried to destroy them. This wasn’t going to happen to Felicity.

His lips came crashing down onto hers before he even got the chance to rethink the urge to feel the warmth of her mouth against his. He put his free hand onto her lower back, pulling her close against him. He could feel her heartbeat against his chest although layers of clothes were separating them. But Felicity didn’t react. It was almost like she turned to stone in his arms. So Oliver pulled back to see her looking at her with insecure eyes.

“What-?” she asked, her gaze showing the first sign of confusion, but it only lasted shortly. With an angry glare she pushed him away from her and took three steps back, putting as much distance between them as possible until her back hit the wall.

Oliver wished there was time to tell her everything. He wished there was time to tell her that she was going to be alright and he loved her and he was so sorry for what he did to her and what Merlyn did to her, but Oliver didn’t miss that Roy and Laurel were still fighting four assassins while Thea and John were now approaching him and Felicity.

“Take her to the lair,” Oliver said, forcing himself to turn his back to Felicity.

Laurel and Roy would get along by themselves. Besides, it was Merlyn who needed to be taken care of, not his little minions. With big steps he ran to where Merlyn was trying to force Nyssa into a corner and make it impossible for her to regain the upper hand in the fight.

Again Oliver lost all sense of what he was doing. While often it was because he was trusting his instincts during a fight, this time his mind was still focused on Felicity, what had she had been forced to go through and whether or not she was going to be okay. She had to. She had to be okay. She had to be herself again, so he could fix things between them.

His mind was so far gone, Oliver didn’t realize Merlyn’s blade was about to cut his throat until Nyssa called out his name and he ducked away right in time before his carotid artery would have been cut. He heard the blades of swords meeting above his head, saw one sword falling to the ground and moved away right in time before Nyssa’s sword would have cut his shoulders, instead stabbing right into Merlyn’s chest now.

Merlyn’s eyes widened in shock before they lowered to where the blade was still stuck in his chest and Oliver wondered for a short moment whether it had looked like that when he had almost died on the mountaintop after the duel with Ra’s al Ghul. Nyssa pulled the blade of her sword out of Merlyn’s chest and he fell to his knees on the cold ground.

Nyssa said something in Arabic, Oliver didn’t understand completely. Rather than a prayer like Oliver was used to from his death experiences with the League, it sounded like a curse, like she was wishing hell on him. Then she raised her sword once more, sliding it through his carotid artery.

Oliver didn’t know what he had expected to feel at the sight of Merlyn’s dead body to his feet. Maybe he had wished for some kind of relief, but Oliver couldn’t feel anything. There was nothing in his heart but a cold emptiness.

Nyssa crouched down and took the ring from Merlyn, putting it onto her own finger instead.

“This should have happened a lot earlier,” she said, her angry eyes focused on the dead enemy. “A lot of people would have been spared suffer if he had died once he had betrayed the League.”

Oliver didn’t nod although a little voice in his head told him that she was right. If Merlyn had been killed right after the Undertaking with which he had betrayed the League’s code, Thea wouldn’t have turned into a killer. Sara wouldn’t have died and suffered through the consequences of her resurrection. Felicity wouldn’t have to deal with being brainwashed. Only his father and Tommy and the hundreds of people he had killed before and during the Undertaking were still dead.

He glanced back over his shoulder to see Roy and Laurel talk to one another, keeping their distance from Nyssa and Oliver. Their fight with the other assassins was over.

“You were distracted during the fight,” Nyssa said and although she was still looking at the dead body in front of her, Oliver knew she was talking to him. “I guess she does mean a lot to you.”

“I guess she’s to me what Sara is to you, Nyssa,” Oliver explained. “I am going to marry her if she can ever forgive my mistakes.”

“In the law of Nanda Parbat we are still married,” she explained.

Oliver looked at her, wondering if he had only imagined a slight insecurity in her voice or if it had been really there. Nyssa was still looking at Merlyn, but Oliver could swear that she was watching him from the corner of her visual field.

“I forced you into marriage,” Oliver almost whispered.

“My father forced the both of us into it,” Nyssa modified.

“But I agreed to it.”

He hadn’t wanted to marry Nyssa. It had never been part of the plan. He just hadn’t had a choice. Still it must have been much worse for Nyssa. She had been forced to get married to the man who her father had given her heritage to and she hadn’t known that Oliver had had no intention of not living in the League or in their marriage. He had to admit that he had never really thought about what that had meant to her until now that Felicity had almost been forced into marriage with someone she hated.

“You might have done it for the right reasons,” Nyssa said, turning around to him. “Although I still wished I would have been the one to kill my father.”

Oliver nodded slightly before he looked down to Merlyn one last time and then turned completely towards Nyssa.

“Thank you for helping with this,” Oliver said.

“It was the right moment to get rid of Merlyn,” she told him. “Like I said before, I never intended on leaving the League. It has always been about waiting for my time to come to kill him and take my rightful place.”

Again Oliver only nodded.

“I will take his body to Nanda Parbat where it will be burnt,” she told him.

“What about your friends over there?” Oliver asked, gesturing back over his shoulder towards the drugged assassins.

“Once they wake up they will kneel in front of Ra’s al Ghul,” Nyssa stated firmly. “And I’d rather not have any of you here when that happens. You should go.”

Again Oliver nodded and already turned towards Laurel and Roy to leave, but Nyssa held him back.

“Oliver,” she said, holding out her hand to him with a little dart on the open palm of her hand.

“What’s that?” Oliver asked.

“It will help breaking down the effect of the drug they gave her. Once you inject her with the drug, she will sleep some hours and then she will be back to herself,” Nyssa explained and Oliver took the dart, looking at it. “I should warn you. The League breaks one’s spirit before they build you up. You’ve been through the same, but you agreed to get into the League even if only because of some earlier force. It might have been worse for her. ‘Back to herself’ doesn’t mean she will be the same she has been. She just won’t be under anyone’s influence anymore.”

Oliver’s hand closed around the dart strongly and nodded.

“Thank you for everything,” he said and held out his hand for Nyssa.

She put her hand into his, shaking it. Then Oliver turned around and started walking to Laurel and Roy, but halfway he stopped and turned around to her again.

“Nyssa?” he asked. Nyssa perked her eyebrows. “Is there a way to annul a Nanda Parbat marriage?”

Nyssa smirked. “I am Ra’s al Ghul. If there isn’t one, I’ll make one.”

Oliver nodded before turning back around and walking away.

There was still rage in his heart about what had happened.  
But Merlyn was dead.  
Now Felicity and her recovery was all that mattered.

 

She still hadn’t woken up. Shouldn’t she have woken up already? Wasn’t she supposed to be awake already? Oliver felt like she was unconscious for way too long. Five hours, thirty-two minutes and eighteen seconds. It was too long, wasn’t it?

As soon as he and Roy had come to the lair – Laurel had stayed to talk to Nyssa shortly, but had told them to just go without her since she had known how strong the urge for Oliver to be with Felicity again had been – Oliver had injected her with the serum Nyssa had given him in the warehouse. She had fallen asleep almost immediately, with her angry gaze focused on him.

She had almost reminded him of Nyssa back when he had held her captive in the very same cage Nyssa had been in after she had handed Merlyn over to the League. He should have just let her do it, he thought. He shouldn’t have helped Merlyn out. He should have let him die.

Gently Oliver stroked the knuckles of his fingers over Felicity’s warm cheek, smiling sadly when she sighed at the touch and turned around, so her cheek snuggled into the palm of his hand. She looked so peaceful. Maybe she was catching up on sleep. After what she had been through, she certainly needed sleep.

Oliver felt his stomach flip. As soon as Felicity had lost consciousness he had pulled her tiny body against his chest and just held her and breathed her in. Finally she had been in his arms again and although he had known that she wasn’t going to stay there forever because they were still broken up, at least she had been in his arms for those short seconds that he had been able to draw comfort from the warmth of her body, hoping she was feeling the same. Later he had taken her home, taken off the League’s garment from her body to replace it with something she would feel comfortable in. He had discussed with himself whether or not to do that since they were broken up and he wanted to respect that, but he hadn’t been able to help the feeling that waking up in the clothes the League had put her in was way worse for her than being changed by him.

And while changing her Oliver had seen the marks of torture Felicity had endured. There were unhealed wounds on her back and the front of her chest. It had increased the rage in his heart again. Merlyn would have deserved a slow, painful death.

When Felicity stirred, turning her face fully into the palm of his hand to breathe him in and then kiss his hand, Oliver clenched his teeth and breathed in deeply, trying to calm his nerves. As much as he wanted her to wake up, he also feared Felicity’s reaction to what she had been put through.

“Felicity?” he whispered.

She made a sound, something between a sigh and a grumble. Her brows furrowed, but she stayed unmoving.

“Felicity?” he whispered again.

“Still tired,” she grumbled against his hand. “Little more sleep.”

“Okay,” he whispered, willing to give her that if that was what she wanted.

But just when he thought she had fallen back to sleep, a deep frown suddenly formed on her forehead. Slowly she tugged his hand away from under her cheek and just when she was about to let go of his wrists, she sat up in bed in panic, gasping for breath and looking around wildly. She was crawling further onto the bed until her back hit the wall, trying to get away from him but at the same time held onto his hand like her life depended on it.

“What-?! What happened?!” she asked with small voice since she was out of breath. When her gaze really focused on his due to the assassin’s brutal punches bruised face, she frowned. “What happened to your face?!”

“You’re safe,” Oliver replied instead of answering. “You’re safe. I am here. Nobody can hurt you.”

Felicity still seemed nervous. Her gaze moved around the room like she was trying to make sure that what she saw and what he had said was true. Slowly her breathing became calmer until she nodded slightly, reassuring herself that everything was indeed alright.

“Do you remember what happened?” he asked her.

She frowned. “We fought about you keeping secrets from me and I asked for time.”

Oliver didn’t miss how she looked at him like she was hoping for him to tell her that hadn’t happened and her memory was betraying her. But it had happened and he wasn’t going to lie to her about it, so he nodded. Felicity’s gaze dropped to her left hand, watching the finger that wasn’t wearing the ring, and he saw her frown deepen for a short moment before she looked back up at him.

“After that everything is black,” Felicity replied, “but I remember being scared. And in pain.”

She moved her free hand over her chest where Oliver knew bruises were and she hissed at the pain it made her feel. He had already put some painkillers on her nightstand, but they needed to talk about this before she could let the pills take the pain. So Oliver nodded shortly, squeezing her hand in comfort, but she pulled it back, wrapping her arms around her legs instead. She still looked scared and her movements seemed to bring her pain.

“Malcolm Merlyn,” Oliver said carefully, not saying anything more to give her to reactivate her memory and remember without him telling her.

Felicity frowned, lowering her gaze back to her hands and bit down on her bottom lip. It took her some while before she almost whispered, “He dragged me to Nanda Parbat. To become his wife.”

Tears formed in her eyes and she sobbed quietly. Oliver reached out his hand to stroke over the back of her hair gently but stopped before his skin made contact with her hair, not sure she wanted to be touched by him. Just when he was about to pull his hand back, Felicity reached out for his hand with hers and put it to her knees, putting her own hand above his.

“He hurt me,” she sobbed.

“I know,” Oliver whispered in response. “But he is not going to hurt you ever again. He won’t hurt anyone. He won’t hurt anyone anymore.”

Felicity looked up at him with questioning eyes. He could see the right suggestion in the expression and only nodded shortly to confirm it. Felicity gulped, but didn’t say anything more. Instead for a long time they just looked at each other. No words were.

“How long was I… away?”

“Three weeks,” Oliver replied and she gasped for breath. “We had no idea where you were. We had no idea it was Malcolm who had you. If we had known-“

“I know,” Felicity interrupted him, the right corner of her lips twitching slightly to an awkward smile. “What did he make me do?”

No more lies. Oliver had promised himself never to lie to her again. He wanted to protect her from the knowledge of what Malcolm had made her do, but he knew that he needed to be honest to Felicity. She needed to know the truth.

“He put you under the influence of a drug. He made you believe Nanda Parbat was your home and the League your family,” he told her and Felicity gulped, new tears forming in her eyes. “He sent you to Star City to force us to deliver Nyssa to the League.”

“Me? What efficiency would that have? Three weeks is not really enough time to be trained to being a badass assassin,” she replied, sniffling slightly.

“You… had your way to make us know how serious the threat was,” Oliver told her.

“The bruises?”

“You ordered the assassins who accompanied you to do that,” Oliver told her, biting his tongue while hesitating to tell her the other part of her efficiency, but Felicity looked at him in question, knowing that there was more to come. “You threatened me to kill William.”

“Oh my god,” she groaned with a facial expression that he knew only from when she had stomach flu. “I think I need to vomit.”

“Do you need a-“

“Keeping your son from me was obviously the right decision when-“

“Hey,” Oliver interrupted her immediately, moving further onto the bed and framing her pale face with his hands. “This wasn’t your fault. None of what happened was your fault. If I hadn’t lied to you, you wouldn’t have left and maybe Malcolm wouldn’t have gotten the chance to abduct you. You weren’t yourself when you said what you said.”

Felicity tried to object, but Oliver shook his head and Felicity shut her mouth without having said anything.

“Everything fell apart,” she whispered, lowering her gaze.

Oliver put his finger under her chin and waited until she looked at him before he said, “We will put everything back together. Once you’re ready, I will earn your trust back. Everything is going to be alright.”

“How?” she whispered. “How will everything be alright after this mess?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver answered honestly. “But I want to give it a try.”

Felicity held his gaze, only looking at him. When another tear rolled down her cheek, he wiped is away with his thumb.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Felicity whispered. “Give it a try, I mean.”

Oliver nodded, pulling his hand back from her chin. “You don’t have to decide that right now. Just… If you should ever… when you feel like you can… please just let me know.”

Felicity nodded slowly and gulped loudly. She took in a deep breath and Oliver could have put a finger on the second when Felicity shut herself off from him. He could see it in her eyes. “Can I be alone now? Sleep some more?”

“Sure,” Oliver said with a nod of his head although he felt his chest tighten and his heart sink at the thought of leaving her again. He had thought it would get better once he had found her, but now all he could think about was that he was scared that if he left her, he she would be taken away from him again or fall into a deep, black hole after what had happened to her. “I will later grab a few things and… find somewhere to stay, so you have the penthouse all for yourself.”

“Thanks,” Felicity said with a short nod of her head.

“Do you need anything else until then?”

She shook her head and with a sad smile Oliver got up from the edge of the bed and walked over to the door. Standing there, he turned around to her.

“Felicity, I am really sorry for what I did and for what happened to you.”

“Well, at least the second part was not your fault,” Felicity answered, only shortly glancing at him before she lay down and closed her eyes. “Can you close the door when you go please?”

“Sleep tight,” Oliver whispered.

He stepped outside of the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

 

 _Where can you run to escape from yourself?_  
_Where you gonna go?_  
_Where you gonna go?_

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this definitely isn't my best work. I know I should actually not write evil!Felicity because I usually fail doing so, but I just loved that line of Reign too much to not at least try.


End file.
